A Girl They Called Shadow
by love2write1409
Summary: Named for her power to adapt to every background like a chameleon, Galathea Stone calls herself Shadow. When she realizes Magneto's plans for her and finds herself in a fight with Sabretooth, she flees to join the X-Men ...
1. Bad Start

_(Hello readers out there :) I'm new on this page and this is my first fanfiction and it's been translated from German to English! I really hope you like it, you'll find the original one here: .de/s/52d3630e00031a142c0de6c0/1/A-girl-they-called-Shadow _

_I'd love to get some review on it!_

_Thanks a lot, Annika :) )_

**Chapter 1: Bad Start**

The rain rolled off my skin as I slowly, step by step, walked towards the gate of the huge building, that reminded me more of a fancy mansion than a school. Even though I knew that most eyes wouldn't notice me, I checked carefully for people on the street and that every single one of my steps was well thought and quiet.

There it was, the sign.

Xavier's school for gifted youngsters.

I took a look over my shoulder before I let go of my camouflage. Then I pressed the doorbell. I suddenly felt so … normal.

A little while later the gate opened and an elderly man in a wheelchair appeared right in front of me. Without saying a word, he signalized me to follow him.

On the way to his office which I found incredibly long I tried not to wonder about him opening me the door personally or that he probably already knew about everything that had happened. How that complete idiot of a helping hand of Lensherr had put his claws to my neck. How I had lost my left middle finger. Ironic actually, if you thought about it, I mean, it had been my favorite weapon against him. But still I doubted, that that was his reason for biting it off.

I glanced at the wooden wainscoting on the walls, then at the bandage on my hand. The blood had soaked it again and dried at the sides, hard and dark. Screw that.

A door to my left opened and the man leading the way steered his vehicle through, before I was able to follow him, as inconspicious as possible. Which wasn't hard at all for me, camouflage was my „gift".

The room was bigger on the inside than it seemed from the outside. In front of the back wall which was made out of glass there was a desk with skyscraper-like piles of folders, sheets and pencils, but they were neatly put in place. On the left side of the desk there was a chalk board, green, like they apparently had them in schools, and on it there were some long physical functions that I didn't understand. The high bookshelves hardly casted any shadows into the light room, which made the tidy office look a lot more friendly.

We weren't alone. In front of the desk, there were three people standing, even though I have to admit, one was more leaning against the desk chewing gum, while the other two just stood there with their arms crossed.

The guy in the wheelchair looked at me, his face in deep thought. I tried to kick out all the emotions, that Erik Lensherr had tried to teach me about him, out of my head, but it didn't really work the way I wanted it to. With his bald head and the hooked nose that stood in contrast to his kind eyes he reminded me of my grandfather – or at least the guy who one had introduced to me as my grandfather. God knows who the guy had actually been, but I liked him.

Professor Xavier can read people's minds, I reminded myself. That's what he was probably doing right now. I forced myself to look at something else, so I looked at the people standing behind him. It was weird how I already knew two of them, even though we had never met in person. How small the world is, an ironic voice in my head mocked, and it sounded far more brave than I actually was.

Cyclops was wearing his sunglasses as usual, but I knew that he was examining me from top to bottom. A bit anxious I pulled my leather jacket down. The man to the professor's right grinned. Wolverine wore a similar jacket, and the way he was standing a bit further away from Cyclops, Xavier and the dark-haired teenage girl, I thought he might not get along with them too well. Our looks crossed, but instead of the smile I had hoped for, he gave me a killing look with his eyes. How lovely that that was only a saying.

Maybe my decision hadn't been so well?

These disfavoring looks were just cruel.

„Chameleon?"

I shivered as I heard the both friendly and pejorative voice of the professor.

„I'm calling myself Shadow now.", I explained as calm as possible. „Like it better."

„Magneto called you Chameleon."

Watch your words, Gal! „Chameleon is dead.", I answered shortly. „And Shadow has risen from the ashes. I'm here voluntarily, if that's what you want to know. I haven't been sent."

„So you're not talking nice about my old friend.", the professor commented, quietly grinning, and I wasn't sure if he wanted an answer or not.

„There were incidences.", I said, just to make sure. „I'm not fighting for him anymore."

„Not for us either." I turned my head and saw Cyclops, one eyebrow pulled up.

„I don't have to fight for you. I could wait outside until -"

„Calm down, kids." Xavier appeasingly lifted his hands.

„It's a once in a lifetime situation, but I have to agree with you.", I heard Wolverine say to Cyclops. „You don't belong here." The last part was for me.

Before I had to bite my tongue not to make a mean comment, the professor interrupted us again. „Stop it, Logan!" Okay. So Wolverine's actual name was Logan. „It would be better if the three of you left now."

If Cyclops wouldn't have worn his glasses, he would have rolled his eyes, visible for everyone. But this way he only sighed.

„So, Wolverine and Cylops.", I said as the three had left the room, the girl, amazingly, _through_ the door. At least I knew her mutation now. „Why were they here?"

„You don't feel comfortable when there's other people around, do you?", the professor asked instead of answering my questions. I hated if people did that.

„Obviously."  
„Why?"  
„Why were the two of them here? And the girl?"

„Logan and Scott informed me about the thing with Sabretooth and Kitty … Well, it's hard to get rid of her, I guess." He smiled. My face stayed frozen. There had to be something wrong about him being so open and polite.

„And what are you going to do with me now? Do you have some kind of mutant prison vor Magneto's helpers in your school?"

„God, no. I'd love to keep you here, but not against your will. You may leave if you want, but it seemed to me like you were thinking about changing sides."

„I already did.", I said quickly. „Mentally, I mean. The way I think ..."

„Good." I nodded. „I'll give you a room then, but I'll keep an eye on you. You worked together with Erik Lensherr for six years, you never know. Please don't take it the wrong way."

I shook my head no, but inside, I sighed. Still, Xavier constantly having an eye on me was better than everything Magneto had wanted to do to me. „I thank you." And I really did. To me it seemed like I had really changed the past few days, that I had fled. Last week Cyclops – or Scott, like the professor called him – would have deeply regretted his deprecation towards me. I knew people who had already been in a fight with him, so I knew, that he hardly ever took off his glasses, making him a lot less dangerous. Logan would have been the bigger problem, but not even he could fight something he couldn't see. But here and now I was able to stop my aggressions and it made me proud, even though I felt a bit like a one-man-selfhelping-group.

_I was able to feel his breath in my back and smell the rotten smell that he excreted even before I saw him. I turned around, getting a bit of my hair in my face and making me blind for a second. There he was, standing in front of me, not shaved at all, with long hair and pitch black eyes, smiling at me like a wild animal on the hunt._

„_What do you want?", I asked with a cold voice, trying to sound as bored as possible, but also arrogant, if you look at it._

„_Magneto is ready." His voice made me shake every time, possibly because he spoke so rarely._

„_I won't come."_

„_Oh yes, you will."_

„_No." My voice sounded even harder and certain, than it did in my head._

„_Don't be that chippy, princess.", he grinned and I shivered again, as he opened his mouth for an even bigger smile, showing all his sharp teeth …_

I woke up from my sleep. With one of the many pillows I rubbed off the sweat from my forehead, whilst my other hand was trying to find the light switch, panicking.

„You're safe. You're here. Safe.", I wispered the moment the lights went on.

My room looked friendly, even now in the middle of the night and with closed curtains. In the past I had hated comfortable rooms like this one, because they change the way of looking at things that might still happen here. Paint a room black and if someone gets murdered it's not as bad, because everyone expected it to happen anyways.

But this room I loved. I needed the difference. And after all the panicking during the past few days this room looked more inviting than everything else. No dark corners in which Magneto's warriors could hide, just a simple, squared bedroom with a huge bed, a full bookshelf and a table with two chairs. Perfect.

I turned off the lights again. The horrible pictures in front of my inner eye came back almost immidiately.

_Sabretooth opened his mouth to laugh hysterically. My dead finger fell out from between his teeth and I rolled to the side to avoid it, while I was still screaming in pain and staring at the bleeding wound on my left hand._

Stop! Lights on!

I started murmuring it like a mantra. „You're safe, there's no one there. You're safe, there's no one there. You're safe ..."

I never had wasted a second to the thought, that out of all people Sabretooth would be the one making me be so scared. I mean, I always thought of him as an idiot, stupid and absolutely predictable. An easy opponent.

The volume of my scared and heavy breathing amazed me. I had never heard myself breathe so fast and loud. Still shaking I got out of the bed. The carpet felt nice and fluffy under my feet as I walked over to the bookshelf. I looked at the titles.

Whoever had lived here before me, it had clearly been a student, easily to figure out by noticing that almost all of the books were teenager's novels or fantasy stories.

But at the bottom I found something I liked more, old classics. Tolkien, Dickens, Lewis, Baum … the list was endless.

I ran over the dusty backs of the books with my index finger. It felt nice. Lensherr once said, that subconscious déjà-vus were safe signs to find out something about one's past. I didn't know much about the time before Magneto. Too many lies, that my alleged mother had told me, causing me to move further away from my true personality. The stronger I tried concentrating on the books, the more my hate I felt towards that woman went away. Maybe I had liked to read in the past? I hadn't touched a book in years.

I pulled out _Oliver Twist_. It was famous, that I knew, and dark, but I hadn't read it.

I walked back to my bed, opened the first page and let myself get caught in the story.


	2. How Not To Make Friends

_Hello, thank you for reading the story, I really hope you enjoy it! __Let me know your opinion in the reviews! __Annika x_

**Chapter 2: How not to make friends**

I picked up the issue of _Oliver Twist_ that was laying on the floor next to my dirty boots.

A little absent I pulled the itchy nightgown that the professor had given me over my head and walked over to the bathroom.

The colorful tiles on the wall formed a mosaic with fighting scenes between different mutants, which I found somehow nice but also sad. Did the architect of this bathroom divine that there would be a mutant war starting shortly? Or had it only been an interesting thought for him? I guessed that the house was built before Xavier and Magneto started fighting. I looked at the insect-like antennae and kraken-tentacles of two fighting mutants while taking off my underwear. It was hard to force myself to stop studying the pictures and take a step into the shower, but when the warm water started to run all over my body, I felt a sudden happiness. My first shower in over a week. I almost used all of the soap and the bottle of shampoo that one had given to me. I watched how the water to my feet changed color, from black and red to clear again, then I realized that the whole shower smelled like lemon and I felt clean again.

A towel tied up around my body, I let water into the sink, threw in my clothes and filled it up with the rest of the liquid soap. My jeans had gotten hard from all the dirt and I was still able to smell my stinking t-shirt when I held my breath.

I put on my last clean piece of clothing – a pair of pink socks, that I already hated just for their color – and stepped outside in the hallway, pressing the towel to my chest.

So. Where was I going to get clothes from?

Gal, whatever you're doing right now, it's completely stupid!, a voice in my head informed me, and one, that sounded more like me, replied: You're probably dead real soon anyways.

True, actually. I was really wondering about them giving me shelter instead of locking me up. After all I had been one of Magneto's best allies over all these years (which I wasn't proud of, now that I knew what he had planned for me!).

A walked down the hallway a few meters and knocked on a door, that didn't have a door knob on the outside, but probably one on the inside because I could see the end of a screw. I guessed that it was the room of the girl who could go through walls.

„What?" Her answer sounded pretty much as annoyed as I felt. „Bobby, if that's you, it's not funny to knock on other people's doors that early in the morning!"

„This isn't Bobby.", I sighed. Nailed it. Somehow my idea of lending clothes from someone else looked pretty damn stupid to me now.

„Who is it then? Rogue?"

„Shadow."

It got quiet and a moment later she stepped through the door. What was her name again? Kathy? No, Kitty was what the professor had called her.

Her facial expression changed fast, lucky me, from angry to amused, as she saw me in my towel.

„What are you doing here?"

„I need something to wear.", I admitted. „My clothes haven't been washed in a week and it -"

„Yeah, got it." She said bored. „Wait here."

She came back a little while later with a pile of dark clothes. „Wear this." She handed me the pile, but when I thanked her as polite as possible, she only waved in the direction of my door and walked back into her room backwards.

Nice view of hospitality, I guess.

Other than I expected, the tight suit fit me perfectly. It was close-fitting, even on my skinny arms and legs, and had a red and black X-sign sewed to the chest. X-Men. Was I even allowed to wear this? A bit insecure I put on my leather jacket on top and also my combat boots, picked up my book and left my room again, to explore the school.

The corridors seemed endless, long, to me, with a vast number of doors, and for a while everything looked the same. It reminded me of the old mansion somewhere in Europe that I had spent most of my childhood in, the walls dark brown with a lamp or a painting occasionally. I would have bet all of my little lethal injections that I hid inside my shoes that there were secret passages behind these paintings somewhere.

But after turning left a couple of times I stood in front of a big and really strong-looking metal door, that opened all by itself like the glass doors in shopping malls, as I stepped closer towards them. It led me into a small chamber with a few buttons, but before I was able to read the tiny writing on them, the elevator already started taking me downstairs.

When I left it, I found myself in a long corridor again, but this one was underground and seemed to be built from pure metal. To my right and to my left there were little corners in the walls, the whole hallway had the shape of a hexagon.

I took a few steps and held my breath when I heard, that my steps set free clear sounds, and that even though I wasn't even wearing heels.

I heard slow, departing steps.

I put up my camouflage like a shield, changed all my cells into adaption of my surrounding. Only milliseconds later every small part of my body had the color and structure of the metal wall to my left. Even the book that I had taken with me to read somewhere, looked like a little chameleon.

_„__Chameleon!"_

_„__I am coming, mother!" I jumped from the swing and landed ungentle in the hot sand. On my way inside I grabbed my shoes._

_The door of the old wooden villa creaked a bit when I turned the door knob and opened it. On the other side of the hallway where there was the door to the kitchen, I could see my mom's dress swinging around, like always when she had passionate arguments with someone. As quiet as possible I closed the door behind me and took a few steps closer to the kitchen to listen._

_„__If you continue calling her by her mutant name, soon everyone is going to know, what we are, Kayla!" The male voice sounded raspy._

_„__So?" My mom. „Chameleon on her own would be stronger than the whole neighborhood combined!"_

_„__We have to be careful! People don't like things like this!"_

_„__Mutants are better than them, and you know that, Erik!"_

_„__But I need my mutants alive!" Erik Lensherr almost yelled that last part. „And you are strong!"_

As fast as the memory had come, as fast it was gone again. I had been si years old when I me Magneto for the first time. Kayla Stone, a telepath with the speciality to change someone's mood, had introduced him to me. At that point I had been completely sure of her being my mother. I didn't waste a thought to the fact, that about half an hour after this conversation half of the street had blown up and Kayla and I had been forced to move from Tallahassee to Cardiff. After all it had been my decision to come back to the States ten years later and join the Brotherhood, Magneto's mutant army. And I was a survivor of the little street fight, so what more would I want?

I just continued walking down the metal corridor, as close to the wall as possible because that made my mutation stronger. After about a hundred meters another door appeared on the other side of the hallway, which opened as if it had felt my presence. But I was wrong, a woman with short red hair that I had never seen before walked out, followed by Charles Xavier. They walked next to each other silent, but from a past conversation with Magneto I knew that the exerted look on the professor's face meant that he was talking to someone through the use of telepathy – and that he was able to hear all the thoughts of present people in that state, without being able to shut it down.

Fuck.

I covered my mouth with my hand to stop me from mumuring, simultaneous with the red-haired woman turning around and lookd exactly in my direction.

I forced myself to stay calm and put up the level of my camouflage, because I knew by experience that after a while of staring at me I was able to see, especially by telepath-mutants.

„Is it her?" The professor looked at the woman.

„She's standing around her somewhere, thinking we couldn't find her.", was the growling answer. I guessed that they weren't saying these sentences in their thoughts so Iwas able to hear them, probably so I would become scared.

„Right." The blood in my veins froze as the woman answered my indirekt, though question. „Come on, show yourself."

„Jean, we don't want to read other people's minds." Professor Xavier put his tie into place. „Leave her. She can't get into the laboratories, that's for sure."

„True." Like in timelapse Jean turned back around to the professor. She was noticeable disappointed.

„Let's go. She'll find her way out alone." I felt a clicking in my head and the picture of the professor giving me a wink appeared in front of my inner eye. I shivered. So that was what telepathic communication looked like?

I only changed back into my normal, visible form when I got off the elevater on the first floor, wanting to leave the lab corridor as fast as I was able to.


	3. Nightcrawler's Return

_Hello there! :) Here's chapter 3, I hope you like it and you Keep on reading! Annika x_

**Chapter 3: Nightcrawler's return**

Here in the mansion they always spoke of me in the third person, or even better, of „her", not caring if I was present or not, that's what I noticed the next days.

If someone had seen her (Sorry, but that's like the worst joke I've ever heard!).

If they could trust her.

If someone had spoken to her.

Or, best one: How much news Magneto found out about the X-Men now.

This egocentric bunch of complete idiots. Possibly none of them had ever made any mistakes. Well I admit, joining Magneto _had_ been pretty bad if I thought about it now, but how should Charles Xavier and his mutants ever find out about me and answer all their questions if none of them spoke to me? Or even thought about it?

Well, I actually had had a few conversations, but they had either been cold and unfriendly (with that horrible bitch Jean Grey) or with my reflection in the mirror about what I did with all of my spare time here.

Reading child book classics.

The whole fucking day long.

When I was done with _Oliver Twist_ I started _Anne of Green Gables_, then _Moby Dick_, worked my way through _Alice in Wonderland_, _The Wizard of Oz_ and _The Hobbit_. But after one and a half weeks of constant reading, when the last thing I held in my hands was _Winnie-the-Pooh_, I was close to having another one of my good old rage eruptions, during my time with Magneto probably the only state in which I could have gotten quite dangerous for Sabretooth.

Fine, I was safe in this school, but I was too old to attend the actual classes or at least it seemed embarrasing to ask the professor about it.

I needed an adventure, or at least a bit of difference!

I got it on my nineteenth day in the mansion in the form of a mental call to all the mutants in the institute that had already come off age, also reaching me.

_Nightcrawler is back. Come to my office._

I had no idiea who or what that Nightcrawler was, but I predicted him to be a mutant that had been on a mission somewhere and had to be welcomed now. I just didn't understand what role I was to play in there.

Of course, I had two theories, but one was unlikely, the other one virtually inhumane.

Either the X-Men trusted me now or they wanted to exhibit me in front of others of their kind like a piece of meat.

I walked into the professors office squeezed in between Wolverine, the only one who looked at me from time to time, and Storm, that I had only talked once to to date, and that conversation laid back three years now and we had been chained to a wall after a clash with a mutant hunter, so we had been in more or less the same predicament. That's why I believed that her opinion of me wasn't too negative. Probably not positive either, but neutral like that, she was way better than the rest.

It was the first time I saw all the mutants of the X-Men in one room.

Jean Grey and Scott Summers a.k.a. Cyclops stood next to the board, hand in hand. They both gave me unfriendly looks when I glanced at them for a second, which I would have loved to answer with a sticked out tongue, but with 23 years of age I found that a but _too_ childish (even though they weren't acting more grown up either!).

To Scott's left there was a man in his early thirties, leaning to the desk in a kind of casual way, who was having a coolness competition with Logan, or at least that was what it looked like. His dark hair was mostly falling into his face, even though he had tried to repress it into a ponytail with a ribbon in the back of his head. He was wearing a brown cloak with long arms, that reached him to his ancles. He was spinning around a deck of cards in his hands. He was French (I guess …) and his name was Remy LeBeau, as a mutant Gambit. He lived close to Xavier's school and showed up here once in a while, apart from that he apparently spent loads of time in close-by casinos and fooled people out of their money by using his powers. I didn't know what his actual mutation was, but I did know that he liked poker cards to play a role in using them. To be honest, I dound him really interesting and attractive, but he had this look he liked to give everyone, that made me nervous and that felt like thousands of little electric shocks everywhere on my body.

Storm was standing next to him. Her white hair was perfectly straight like always and she herself was standing straight like a stick, struggling with represent her role model function, which she had for the students as a teacher, also when she was with the other mutants.

With a hand gesture she told me to sit down on the chair next to her. I followed her silent request and sat down, in a perfect angle to watch Logan who was standing next to the door smoking his cigar, giving Gambit cold looks, but at the same time watching the professor who was sitting in his wheelchair in the middle of the half circle of grown up mutants.

Something inside me was really curious about the new guy – or should I say, the guy coming back? – but on the other hand I was sure that he wasn't different from all the others in this room, so I wasn't missing anythings in the time he wasn't here.

The creepiest thing about him was, that he made us wait for a long time and we were all just silent.

But then …

I jerked.

Right next to me a tall man suddenly appeared out of nothing, leaving a cloud of dark blue fog.

My heart was still beating faster than usual, when he walked towards the professor with an elegant walk and friendly shook his hand. I only realized now that something was wrong with him. He was a mutant obviously, and furthermore a teleporter, but he seemed to be not even _human_.

He indeed had the figure of a normal slim young man, but on the height of his tailbone, he _had_ a tail, a long and dark blue one that ended in seomething that looked like an arrow. His skin seemed to be blue, that's what I gathered from the color of his tail and the hand, that was shaking the professor's. And as if that wasn't enough, that hand only had three fingers, two normal ines and a thumb, all of them fat and round.

I shuddered again when he turned around to greet the other X-Men standing around me. His face wasn't disfigured, the small scars that were writing signs into his face gave him something mystic and made him just as attractive as I found Logan and Remy LeBeau privily, but his eyes were yellow and his teeth sharp. And there was something about him that made me have a lot of respect for him. Maybe it was the fact that he looked like I imagined a demon to look like?

The suit and the pretty shoes he was wearing really didn't go with that warrior-look.

He said a few words to Storm and he others and I was suprised how clear and friendly his voice sounded, even though he had a slight accent, German perhaps.. But what surprised me even more – and the others as well – was that he nodded to me before he left the room.


	4. No Answers, But Many Questions!

_Hi!_

_Thanks for following this story! I hope you like it, if so (or if not) tell me in a review! :) _

_Annika x_

**Chapter 4: No answers, but many questions**

I was the last one to leave Xavier's office, maybe because I was trying not to start a fight, maybe because I was bored and had nothing better to do anyways. Probably the latter, because my life in the institute couldn't be more exciting than the one of a normal human, right? And he at least had a job!

I I shouldn't have left Magneto. Or at least not come here. But what would it be like now? Would I still be alive? Or would Lensherr have just pulled through his gruesome plan and possibly killed me with it, just like all the other mutants, that now swam in huge glas containers like shriveled embryos in an underground room of his fort? Thinking of it gave me shivers. I would have never survived that fight. Notagainst him, not against Sabretooth, not against Mystique. Because in what place in the world could I be sure to talk to people who were really themselves and not Mystique, if not here? There was no other place and that was sad in a way.

On my way outside I swiped a rolled up briefcase that looked like the ones you use to store weapons, by changing the DNA cells in my arm for a few seconds and taking it out of the shelf without anyone noticing it.

I already slowly opened the noble-looking silk bow that held the thing together when I wasn't able to hear the other mutants' steps anymore. What I found was a row of different-sized knives that were held in place by silver elastics and whose blades were secured by flat corks. I took one out that had about the length of my palm. The grip felt pretty comfortable in my hand and the weapon didn't weigh much, the blade was flat as paper. I threw it up in the air, where it turned before it landed back in my hand.

Perfect. I had to smirk when I put it in my boot, just in case, of course.

The longest of the knives resembled the machete that Kayla Stone had put up over the fireplace back in Europe. The shortest ones were three throwing knives that all looked alike, except for the different groovings in the knob. They looked like lines someone had just put there at random but I knew enough about weapons to be sure that they were letters, initials, even though I wasn't able to figure out what they were.

The briefcase was a real gold mine for me, if you considered that knives were the only weapons that I had ever learned how to use. Long swords or guns were nothing someone ever wasted a thought to teaching a young female mutant how to use. Thanks a lot.

The shadows in the dark hallway gave way to the golden rays of the sun and i looked up. I was standing next to the opened door of a living room-like hall, through whose windows a lot of light came in from outside.

The grass in the garden was mowed neatly which I hadn't noticed when I arrived, and also the past weeks I hadn't botherd going outside. Too many of Xavier's students were always hanging out there, but the part of the garden that I was staring out to now was empty.

Without a camouflage I crossed the empty common room – for real, it was three o'clock in the afternoon, where were the children?! – and opened one of the windows, which opened with a gentle clicking. I threw out the collection of knives and carefully climbed after.

The feeling, as the sunlight and my skin met directly again after all this time, was incredible. The rays were warm and tickled a bit, bantered with my nose and played with the light spots on my skin. I closed my eyes and at the same time rolled up the sleeves of my X-men-suit as high up as possible. I even opened the zipper at my décolleté a bit to feel the sun. Wonderful!

An awesome change after all that rain during my escape and the loneliness in the past weeks.

I pulled out one of the three labeled knives, held it between index finger and thumb and threw it. The weapon neatly split a branch of a tree and the blade stuck in the bark.

It's been so long ..

I threw another knife, then the third one until they formed a straight line on the side of the tree.

Then I took one of the longer weapons and threw it into a tree that was a bit further away; I repeated the whole procedure until I was surrounded by stabbed trees. Only the machete and the knife in my shoe stayed in their places.

When I picked up the briefcase from the floor to collect the knives, I realized a sizzling noise inside of the soft envelope. With my index finger next to the gap on my right hand and unsewed the stitching, hoping to find something valueable. But my hopes were dulled when I only found a little booklet. It had the title „Use of blades – explained" and seemed to be a guide for throwing knives. The only interesting thing I noticed was that the linesin the bottom right corner resembled the ones on the knives. With the book in my hands I took a few steps backwards and sat down on the white bench next to a fountain. Of course I didn't expect anything worth reading from this guide, but when I opened it a baroque signature with letters leaning towards the left side caught my eye.

It looked familiar to me, but my memories were blurry like a dream you can't fully remember, but I was sure I had seen it before in an awake condition. I couldn't figure out the letters, just like the ones on the cover and in the knive, but the name started with an L, I was certain.

„Hello." I let my head drop back and looked into a dark blue face decoratedwith scars. The hair of the young man had fallen a bit into his face and covered his yellow eyes.

„Hi." I answered shortly and closed my book.

„You sound rough. Is something wrong?"

„I'm just sitting here reading." Of course something's wrong, dumbass, I mainly spoke to myself in the mirror the past days and that among people who were mutants like me that I didn't have to hide from.

„My apologies." He took a step back. „I could leave again, if you need time for yourself."

„No, stay, you already interrupted me." I put the book down next to me on the bench. Dammit, I had to be more friendly. „Sit?" I pointed on the seat next to me.

„Sure." He elegantly sat down next to me, his legs bent. He was wearing shorts and a wide grey shirt that gave away that he hadn't got any hair on his legs and arms. His dragon-like tail dangled down somewhere on the side of the bench. „I thought I could talk to you."  
„Of course, why not. Everyone here's doing that, can't be that hard." My voice was oozing with sarcasm, but he just laughed.

„True." He offered me his hand. „Kurt Wagner. What's your name?"

A bit hesitant, I took his hand with the three fingers. Shaking it didn't feel as weird as I thought it would, even though he only had these three thick claws. Besides, his hands were soft and kempt.

„Shadow."

„No, your name." He wanted my actual name.

„Galathea Stone." I said. „You're the first one to ask. The only one except for the professor to ask me anything at all."

„Don't worry about it." He rocked up and down with his toes – he only had three of them, too, one being on the opposite side as the other two, like a thumb. „They'll thaw."

„Oh really?" I shrugged my shoulders. This man was a bit eerie. His face seemed extremely honest and the rosary around his neck gave him something clean and pure, but I couldn't believe that he was here being nice to me because he _wanted_ to. It wasn't because he didn't look human, I didn't care. It was because none of his X-men friends talked to me either, even more: They hated me. I was sure that he knew who I was. Why did he ignore it?


	5. Whatever, Nevermind

_Hello guys! :) I now happily present to you … CHAPTER 5! :D I hope you like it, please leve a review as well! Thanks, Annika x_

**Chapter 5: Whatever, nevermind**

„Yeah." I avoided to look at him, but I knew that he kept on looking at me. After a while of silence, he frowned. „You don't even want to talk." Statement.

„You're a fast one." For a hort moment I looked directly into his eyes, but this split second was enough to gave me shivers.

„Fine. We'll talk another time." He jumped up and landed on his legs. Wow. He definitely was agile. Where did that come from? As an answer to his sentence I murmured something between a yes and a no. I hope he understood, that I meant more no than yes. I couldn't need someone like him, who was trying to kiss my ass to later get information out of me. It was dangerous. _Trust nobody!_, Erik Lensherr had said, when I had met him for the first time seventeen years ago.

„See you then." Kurt nodded in my direction and politely walked a few steps before he ended in smoke in front of my eyes. Hopefully for a longer period of time, duh, in my opinion he could stay away from me and take his X-Men friends with him.

What did I do here?

With a loud sigh I put the guide back into the briefcase and decided to read it later. I got up and walked through the grass towards the trees to pick up the knives.

I always had my meals in the institute alone. I hated to be watched by sceptical grown-up mutants or over-curious kids when I had breakfast or supper.

Luckily, the kitchen in the establishment was opened 24/7, which made it possible for me to sneak in right before or shortly after the official eating times and get myself some food.

But today supper was apparently held earlier, so when I walked out of the kitchen with a bowl full of lasagna, all of the chairs in the huge dining room were filled and it looked like in these movies, you know what I mean. Everyone talking and laughing and stuff. At least I didn't drop my bowl, because suddenly I felt like 50% of the people in the room were staring at me.

I looked across the room at the door, but the closest one was right next to the table where the professor and all the grown-ups sat – I automatically put up my camouflage.

„Come here."

I stopped focussing my food and looked right and left. Everyone was looking at their food or at their neighbor, only a girl of maybe seven stared at the place where I just disappeared, shocked. None of them had spoken to me, it was only in my head. In my head. Of course. Professor Xavier. I really had to get used to this kind of communication. „Mom" had never done that, even though she had been a telepath.

I gave the little girl a snotty look, whereupon she turned back to her friends, then I walked over to the older mutants, slowly and as calm as possible, hoping that the arrogant bitch Jean Grey wasn't reading my thoughts at this very moment – because then everyone would know, how insecure I was. But at least then they would know my opinion on them.

The table was long enough to keep a big enough distance between them and me, as I sat down next to Logan. But even though I tried to eat as if everything was normal, I felt Jean and Scott's looks in the back of my head, and the latter burned as if he wasn't wearing his glasses.

I gave them a deadly look. Idiots.

Logan on the other hand didn't seem to care that I was present, just like Storm, even though she had looked up for a second when I sat down.

The professor smiled at me, but he seemed to study every single one of my moves.

Nightcrawler – apparently not mad at me at all because of our conversation this afternoon – looked at me almost as attentive as the professor, but different than him his head was bowed over his plate so I wouldn't notice. Obviously, I did anyways.

Well then, the whole game the other way around. Without letting eny of them out of sight I took my first bite. It was hotter than I had thought and I started coughing and swearing when I swalloed it. I heard how Nightcrawler giggled and had to bite my lip not to punch him, but that didn't impress him or anyone else at the table, about as much as the fact that I was trying to keep an eye on all of them the whole time. Jean Grey and Charles Xavier looked at each other and I knew that they were talking to each other the telepath way – about me!

„Oh, fuck you all!" I pushed away my plate and broke the silence in this part of the dining room. „Keep eating, I'm out!" Shaking my head and angry I stood up so fast that the table moved a bit.

And off I went, invisible for most, on the way to my room.

I didn't leave my room for the next 48 hours, at least mostly, and the only two times I did it, not in a visible form. But it was okay not to eat much and to be alone, I didn't want to talk to anyone. Well, to admit it – I really wanted someone to talk to, someone who thought the same way as I did, but I couldn't leave, but if I stayed, there was nobody there for me. It was a double windmill.

I spent hours in the tub, most of the time with my head under water, I only came up to breathe every three to four minutes. One of my to be honest not many talents.

But when I got out of the tub on the second day, I looked at the knives that I had put next to the sink after washing them. Sad but true, I missed fighting.

Magneto had sent me out into the world regularly to complete a bunch of orders for him. The first one was always the one I remembered best. It had happened in the dark corner of a club, where the colorful lights had no impact anymore. I had killed my first man for Magneto there, an older mutant named … well, I don't even know any more. Something exotic with a Z. Lensherr had told me some story of an unbelievable crime that man had done. But when his blood had decorated the light walls and the knife in my slightly red stained hands shook, all of it had turned out to be a „mistake", short, all of it had been a test, and the man has been no mutant and of course no criminal. Thanks to that evening I now have a bunch of little scars on the bottom half of my back and an enduring hate for people. Wouldn't I had been angry at Magneto? Apparently my 16-year-old me hadn't really had a sense for moral.

I had checked up on everyone and everything I had to deal with the following years myself. And Erik Lensherr had never lied to me again – or at least he had done it well from that point on.

Something wet rolled over my fingertip and into my palm. I had pulled out one of the knives out of its case and had accidently cut my finger. I watched the drop of blood moving around in my hand like jello.

I put the knife aside slowly and washed out my hand in the sink and I didn't turn away until the last bit of red was gone in the drain.

Something made me want to go outside.

I threw on my old olive-green shirt that I had worn the day I arrived at the institute and that was now washed and clean again, and dark pants with it, that Magneto had had done for me from a bullet-proof material that was still thin enough to allow me to move around like in normal jeans. I didn't wear my leather jacket today, so as a result everyone was able to see the huge and almost fully healed flesh wound on my left arm from where Sabretooth had bitten me right after I lost my finger. With the weapons in my back pocket I – adapted to my surroundings – went to the common room again through which you were able to get out into a more secluded part oft he garden.

My legs were already half out through the open window as I noticed the bench on which I had sat on a few days ago. Quite alarmed I noticed that the seat was already taken and that I was not alone. It was Nightcrawler, no wait, _Kurt._

I tried to get my legs back into the house but in that exact moment he turned his head in my direction and waved at me. WHen did I become visible? Dammit, I had tob e more careful!

I felt how the look on my face changed from rather happy to embarrassed to irritated.

Okay, Gal, you don't have to stand this for long., I told myself. In ten minutes you're out of this!

I put on a fake smile and walked towards him as calm as possible.

Today he was wearing a really tight shirt with white and red stripes which didn't only show his impressive muscles but also made him look a lot younger than before. He was probably about my age! Anyways, I wasn't sure if the colors really suited him.

„I knew you would come here.", he said in a soft tone and politely offered me the seat next to him.

„For something else actually, but yeah."

„The knives in the trees, was that you?"

I stared at the window through which I had come. „Yes."

„Pretty …accurate." Okay, his vocabulary was more the one of an elderly man. Also, he had a slight accent that sounded familiar. Probably eastern European or German.

„Thanks."

„And you never came in through the door?"

„No." I still stared at the window when soemthing suddenly touched my arm. _Dammit, stop it!_, I almost yelled, but then I saw that he held a glass in his hand which was filled with a viscous yellowish drink. I looked at him and raised my eyebrows. „So what's that gonna be?" Was that guy trying to flirt with me? Fucking idiot.

„It's milkshake." He shurgged his shoulders. „I'll drink it if you don't want it."

„No, I'll have it. Except it's poisoned."

„No I didn't already sink that deep. If I wanted you dead, I would do that differently." This anecdote felt like a punch in my stomach region. „But I don't want that. Plus, I don't like killing."

I took the glass and enjoyed its coldness for a few seconds. Kurt was also holding a milkshake in his hand. I supposed he had planned the whole thing in advance, I couldn't believe it!

„Amen."

„So you're religious?" I again raised my eyebrows. Apparently my most frequent reaction while talking to this man. Kurt nodded and drank a mouthful. I also lifted my glass and drank.

„Tell me something about you.", he asked politely. „The others told me that -"

„So you already know everything you have to know.", I interrupted him harsh and put the glass back on the bench between us, like a tiny wall.

„I'm sorry, I'm sorry!" He put up his hands. „But I wanted to see it myself, you know. I don't think God likes prejudice."

Oh and now I should believe that he did all of this because he was a fucking bible fanatic?

„Good.", I said. „But first I want to know about you."

„There isn't much."

„You're a blue mutant. There must be something!" The moment I had said the words I already felt bad about them. Probably my description of him was too straight forward. I really have tot hink more before I talk!

„It's okay, I know what color my skin is." He smiled, but he didn't look to happy anymore. „I grew up in Germany, with a group of gypsies." At least I got the accent right.

„And they didn't find it bad that you …"

„They only knew I looked differently. I didn't even know I could telport for a long time. I found out about it at a circus." His voice was a bit more quiet now and I noticed that there must be more about that circus.

„How?", I asked.

„I worked there. As a performer. And during one of the performances my adopted sister fell off the trapeze and I just ended up catching her … through teleportation."

„Pretty cool."

He pulled up the corner of his mouth a tad and showed some of his sharp teeth. But he remained silent. Then: „How was it with you?"

„There was always mutants all around me. That I started working for Magneto was only a matter of time.", I summarized briefly.

„Did you know him?"

„SInce I was six." I gulped.

„And your mutation? Did you know about that?"

„Forever, basically." I answered truthfully.

„And that Sabretooth attacked you? Is it true?" Oh my goodness, slowly but surely this guy was getting more and more brash. But he had enough good manners to notice it himself and apologize right away.

„It's true." I said as neutral as possible. „Since that I have one less finger, but that's it, no big deal." Leavong out the nightmares.

„You were lucky. Other people who fought Sabretooth ended up the other way around, where a finger was the only part of them that was left." The way he said it unvoluntarily made my laugh.

„Do you know him?"

„From afar."

„So you didn't ever fight him?"

„God, no. I'm not a fighter, I'm a bit untalented when it comes to that." He started looking at his fingers in a pseudo interested way. „Unlike you."

„That's non of your business!" My smile vanished.

„So you still think I'm your enemy?" In my ears it sounded as if he was making fun of me, but I actually thought he didn't intend to do that. He was too nice.

„I just changed sides." I took a sip of my milkshake and only noticed now that it tastes like banana. Apparantly the institute knew mor about me than I had thought, if they even knew my favorite flavor. Or did Kurt just guess? Hopefully, or otherwise he was better at spying on people than the secret service.

„It's alright." He finished is glass in one gulp as if he was trying to chug-a-lug a beer. „And other than that?"

„Other than what?"

„Oh come on." He smiled and revealed his predatory teeth. „Tell me something about you. Anything. What do you like to do in your spare time?"

„I –" No. „That's enough!" I got up and finished me glass. „You know too much already!"

„That's not true!" There was a slight disgruntled undertone in his voice as he got up as well. „I'm just trying to be nice!"

„Oh really? And fort hat you need a list of all my favorite things to do? Of my favorite books and movies? The names of all the pets and ex boyfriends I ever had? The color of my underwear?" My voice had gotten really high, but he didn't respond to it.

„It's quite difficult to make friends with you if you're always that repellend or freak out, do you know that?" _Make friends._

„It needs two people to make friends.", I countered cold and put the glass back on the bench. In my way back tot he window I wished fort he power to teleport like him, but instead I just adapted to my surroundings – and stopped.

I wasn't angry anymore. Or if, then probably more at myself than at him. Was I really such an unfriendly person? Okay, I had a lot of emotional up- and downturns like a teenager in puberty, but I mostly changed from not interested to angry. But without any reason? Dammit. My reaction before really had been inappropriate if his intentions really had been only good. If.

I looked back in Kurt's direction. He was sitting on the bench, his arms on the backrest to his left and right and his his right hand he held his empty glass. He remined me of Eddie somehow.

I had met Edward Prince three years ago, a short time before a fucking mutant hunter in Brooklyn had caught me. He was a rather tall man, about two meters, with darkskin and a huge afro he had tried to tame in a ponytail. The first day I had seen him he was wearing a red sports jacket and black baggy jeans with yellow trainer. The way he had sat in a bench wit his mouth opened and en empty bottle of vodka in his hands, I ignored him at first, but afterwards he had spoken to me about „randomly disappearing". He had sounded so sober that I had gotten curious or rather sceptical. Obviously, he had turned out being a mutant who was kind of immune to poison like alcohol or whatever, I didn't remember. He had never really told me. Weh ad only gone out about four times and had sex twice a soften.

However, my time with Magneto was over.

When I blinked, Nightcrawler was gone. The only thing left was a dark blue and gray cloud of fog.


	6. Feel

_Hello everybody, here comes chapter 6, I hope you like it, it's a bit emotional :) x Annika (I'd love to read some reviews)_

**Chapter 6: Feel**

Back in my room I immidiately went to bathroom to get the taste oft he milkshake out of my mouth. I picked up my toothbrush, but when I looked up into the mirror, my face looked as i fit had changed. Not only that my cheeks looked less haggard than usually, my skin more clean, my hair more shiny – and damn – was that a sparkle in my eyes?

I looked happier. I slowly dropped the hand that held the toothbrush and scraped my chin. Even my nails had grown a lot in the past weeks which was an evidence of calm because whenever I got nervous I started biting my nails.

And even though I wasn't on the run anymore and the fear was over I didn't really understand what happened. I was alone in my enemy's camp, basically in the lion's den. Well, I didn't really regard their views as hostile but neutral, the X-Men themselves were arrogant, but they had a bigger problem with me than I had with them.

Except Kurt.

He listened to me, but was he really a friend?

It was hard for me to edmit that I liked his calm and nice way of being a lot because it balanced me and took away my aggressions that I was always close to getting when a bitch like Jean Grey made a nasty comment about me to her friends. Nevertheless I couldn't put the feeling aside that someone had sent hin. Not the professor maybe, but someone in the institute. Someone who couldn't fucking bring up the courage to talk to me face to face.

„You have a pretty interesting taste in books."

„For real?"

„I watched you reading children's books." Kurt sat down on the sofa next to me. I sighed and closed my book, taking my feet down from the table.

„There isn't anything else."

„Did you go tot he library?" He went through his hair with his hand and looked at me.

„What library?"

He smiled. „Here in the institute. I can show you later if you want."

„No." That came out faster than I wanted it to. „Tell me where and I'll find it alone."

„Right." He nodded in my direction a bit sarcastically. „Lone Warrior."

„Exactly." My face froze again and while he was staring at his hands thoughfully I looked him over carefully. His body language was totally calm, he didn't show a sign of a nervous high pulse or a fast breathing nor did his hands or feet shake. Everything about him seemed completely honest.

„If you want to know if anyone sent me, ask." He woke up from his trance abrupt and scared me a bit as he suddelny stood in front of me and looked me directly in the eyes. I noticed that I liked the yeloow color of his. „The answer is no."

Damn, how right he was! I was just paranoid.

I was 23 years old. A grown up woman. Seriously, I acted like a teenager that was ten years younger than me and was missing all of my experience.

Most of all … why did he have tob e so nice? He was one of those arrogant X-Men, they didn't like me and I didn't like them. I shouldn't be liking Kurt! I didn't come to the institute to find friends, I only wanted to be safe. Pretty egoistic, I know.

„Everyone needs friends and especially you should leran to trust. Do to no one what you yourself dislike, Tobit 4:15." He got up and turned around to leave, but I knew he was right. I reached for his arm and without looking at him I murmured an ashamed apologize.

„See, it's not a problem."

I remained silent.

„You know, doesn't matter how bad something is, it's easier with friends."

„You know, just keep the pseudo philosophic shit to yourself."

„Only because you think you always have to be emotionally cold to show everyone you're strong and a fighter."

„I've been through more shit than all of you clowns here together!" My fingers pinched the pillows of the sofa.

„Oh so you lived in a cage for years like an animal? Or did people put you through a painful operation that you only survived because you're able to heal yourself? Or –"

„Oh come on, I got it, I –"

„What I'm trying to say ist hat I like you. I don't think that you need the worst destiny of all to support your image. We're mutant, we all didn't have an easy life." He paused. „Just be nice. To me at least."

He slowly losened my grab around my arm that I still held without noticing it, then he left the room. But not without a „The library is up the corridor outiside and on the left side."

Out of all our conversations it was been the longest.

And the most enlightening.


	7. Terribly Wrong - Or Maybe Not?

_Hello :) I hope you liked the last chapter! This one will give Galathea a lot tot hink about as well. I hope you like it, please leave a review! Annika xx_

**Kapitel 7: Terribly wrong – or maybe not?**

I actually spent the evening in the library, but I couldn't focus. The harsh and still true sentences Kurt had said were running through my head, resounding from my skull through a thousand raspy throats. Ashamed I found myself skimming through the backs of the guidebooks. Dammit, I had never needed any help! Especially not with something mundane like making friends. Seriously, stuff like that works of its own volition.

And then I awakened to the fact that I never had anything like real friends in my life. Loose friends and affairs yes, but never friends.

I really shouldn't break the thing with Kurt.

The clock stroke 11pm and the light in the library turned itself off automatically and I stood in the dark one of a sudden. I closed my eyes enjoying it, only to open them again immidiately to go on looking at the books – real ones, not that stupid guidebooks.

My eyes had always been better in the dark than those of normal people. Even if one can't explain mutant powers, I supposed that it came from some kind of similarity between me and, well, not seing. Let me explain: Darkness lets things disappear and makes them look the same, just like I use my surroundings to disappear. And even when I am invisible, I am still able to see myself, so why not in the dark? I didn't know if that made any sense in the eyes of a scientist, but it worked for me and I was holding on to that theory since I was twelve.

Am I annoying you with all my talking about books all the time? I'm starting to get on my own nerves. But since I turned my back on Magneto my life was boring, so_ normal_, which I didn't consider release at all.

And the only adeventures I was able to find were in stupid old books, or …

Even before I fully opened the door of the institute students' common room I noticed the light blue flickering that was typical for a TV.

It was playing quiet indie music from a music channel, but at this time all of the kids had to be in their beds, that was why the room was completely empty.

Probably someone had forgotten to turn off the TV.

I sat down on the sofa that was flanked by two armchairs like a king. I grabbed the remote that was lying on the coffe table and pressed the buttons to switch the channels. I stopped at something that looked like a love drama.

„May I asked why you changed it?" The male voice came from my right out of the armchair and when I stared into the dark a bit more concentrated I saw the shadow of something long and skinny that ended in a triangle-like tip. Kurt. Oh well.

„I'm sorry."

„It's okay." He stood up, stretched and lingered over to the sofa. Then he sat down next to me delicately. If I hadn't been watching the events on the telescreen, I maybe would have noticed an agitated sparke in his eyes and the slightly crooked posture that was so unlike him.

I leaned forward to pick up the remote that I had put back on the table. „What do you want to –" But I couldn't even end my sentence before Kurt had leaned forward as well to place his lips on mine. Surprised I dropped the remote and let go a quiet yelp. A part of me wanted to push him away from me, but the kiss only lasted for a split second and Kurt pulled his body back fast as lightning. Puzzled, I opened my mouth. I didn't know what to say or where to look, so I let my view wander around the room looking for possible help. But when I turned my head back to my right, Nightcrawler was gone and in the place he had been there was dark fog in the air.

I exhaled sharply and tried to evoke the past few seconds. The way that Kurt's mouth had been on mine, even if not for long.

It felt like someone had dumped a bucket of blistering lava right in my chest. Oh fuck, did I like it?

We had been talking a bunch of times in the past weeks and he had also told me stories about him and I painfully had to admit that my interest in him had grown. I didn't like the thought of it at all, but that young man practiced an awkward attraction on me, amicably and sexually. Well, more than amicably.

In my head I thought of all the curse words I knew, but it didn't help.

I had fallen for Kurt. Somehow.

I felt a slight pain making its way from my fingertips to the rest of my body, an answer to the fast switching between visible and adapted to my background which I always did unconsiously when I was excited. I probably looked like a broken TV or a sick chameleon before I forced myself to calm down.

Again, I wished for Kurt's power to just disappear.

Damn, damn, damn, what exactly are you doing?

I closed the door to my room and stepped out into the bright corridor. I had to blink a few times to get used to the sunlight and usually it annoyed me, but today I was only thinking about last night.

So and now you'll find him and talk to him – even though you're an egocentric bitch with an attachment disorder.

Oh, wow, thanks, subconsciousness, ruin that for me.

You're trying to find a teleporter.

Gosh, how stupid was just this little part of my plan? He could be in China right now or Africa or at the South Pole, how would I know. Or with the other adult mutants (those whom they trusted) in the labs where they mostly spent their mornings.

I tried to even my shirt, but it didn't really help because I hadn't changed when I had gone bed last light and I also hadn't this morning. All of the fabric was wrinkled.

The way to the elevator at the end of the corridor that inhabited Xavier's office seemed extremly short today because I was thinking so much.

Surprisingly I caught my finger shaking when I pressed the button to go down, only a little bit of course! Shadow didn't shake. But she did turn invisible when things get unpleasant, such a power could be helpful at times. I was close to turning invisible at the moment. What kind of a coward have I become? It happened, though.

Silvergray like the metal of the wall I walked through the hallway from which doors on the left and right led into labs or who knows. My heart was beating so hard I was afraid people in Australia could hear it, but I still didn't even try to walk quietly. I just didn't want anyone to see me shake or blush.

Oh Gal, how embarrassing you are!

The corridor made a turn to the left and even before I walked around the corner I heard two adult voices whose owners were talking muted – apparently about Jean Grey's latest discovery, who ever cared about that – but I recognized the voices as Kurt and Storm's.

I really hadn't thought of finding him right away.

I took a deep breath until my lungs were bursting with oxygen and my head hurt more than all the possible consequences of what I wanted to do now.

It bolstered me up anyways.

Be. Your. Old. Self. Again.

If not now, then never. I waited until Storm walked around the corner and passed me and until I couldn't hear her steps anymore, then I turned visible and quickly walked towards Kurt who was still standing in the hallway alone.

„KURT WAGNER!" I took another deep breath but didn't get any slower.

I noticed how he turned his head amazed, but I didn't leave him time to say anything, I just grapped his shoulders, stood on my toes and kissed him.

„Now we're even.", I gasped, trying to sound cheeky.

„Holy mother of God.", was everything he replied.

Oh shit. Did he not like it? I mean, it was him who had kissed me first and this had only been the answer! Did men change their minds that fast? Actually, I was suprised by myself.

„So I guess I'll just … go." I said and took a step back, but Kurt reached for my hand.

„Can we … try that again?" He dropped his gaze and stared at his feet. If his skin hadn't been blue he would have probably blushed now.

Come on, kiss me!, my mind begged, but at the same time: Holy crap, Gal, what's wrong with you? When did you change like this? You sound like a fangirl in the first row at a teenage popstar's concert. Fucking embarrassing.

So was that what it feels like to really fancy someone?

„I guess …", I wispered but I doubted he could understand a word I said, that was how tight my beating heart seemed to tie my throat together.

„Well, then …" He took a shy step towards me and gently touched my hair. Spontaneously I wrapped my arms aroud his neck and our lips touched again. Kurt came closer and touched my waist with both his hands.

Every single one of my organs seemed to be close to exploding and so was the blood in my veins.

Then everything around me turned pitch black and I was sure I was falling, then I felt the cold metal wall behind my back.

Did I just faint or did we teleport?

Kurt kindly loosened his handle and grinned at me. „Thanks."

„For what?" I kept my hands in his neck, feeling his hot skin. „Isn't that against your vow of chastity?"

„Careful, you're starting to be mean again." Duh, the old Kurt I knew came back. Hopefully the end of embarrassment. „I never took one. I am religious, but that doesn't mean I'm a priest. Even though I spent some time in a monastery." He winked and gave me a kiss on the forehead. I hadn't felt that good in a long time, probably never before. As quiet as possible I exhaled but it sounded more like moaning. I sighed.

What. Was. Wrong. With. Me?

I felt like my whole personality and all my character traits had changed in the past weeks, I was so much more …_ girly_ and I hated it. What other people thought of had always been sleeping in the last drawer of the things I cared about. And most important, no friend, no enemy, no affair had ever found out so much about me like Kurt had done in this short time, just through_ talking._ Not to mention about those damn feelings.


	8. There Must Be A Reason For It

_Hello, I'm back with chapter 8! Again, it's between Kurt and Galathea. Have fun, I hope you like it! Please leave reviews ;) Annika xx_

**Chapter 8: There must be a reason for it**

„And now?"

„What now?" I noticed that Kurt held my hand between his fingers and pulled it back quickly, just like the rest of my body.

„What was that yesterday? And now?"

„Well, I … I don't know for sure." He frowned. „I thought it was right. Didn't you?"

I sighed. Damn right. „No."

„Not? Then I'm sorry but you have to explain to me why you –"

„I'm not the right person for conversations like this." I went through my short hair with my fingers trying to look chilled. „Or shit like relationships."

„Everyone has relationships. Friends, enemies, something like the thing we have now …", he added quietly and examined the look on my face which I hoped didn't reveal too much.

„We're not going out or anything."

„We don't have to do anything if you don't want that …" He stopped in the middle of his sentence. „Wait. You're scared."

„I'm not!", I said angrily. I_ was_ scared. I couldn't remember ever being in a situation like this or one that had been close to this one now. With real feelings and stuff. And without feelings it wasn't a real relationship, only sex, drugs and – death. Oh well.

_„__Baby, are you comming?" The young man with the Elvis hairdo and the tight leatherjacket sounded as if he already had more than one beer running trough his bloodstream. He pointed in the direction of the glowing door of a shabby bar and took a step backwards, staggering and trying not to fall. The gold necklace was off-center and his washed-out jeans hung so far down that you could see his distinctive pelvic muscles._

_„__Sweety, I'm here." My own voice sounded more like a babbling as well as I let my hand slide into the pocket of his pants, touched his private parts and turned him in my direction._

_„__Wow." He placed his hands on my butt and lifted me up so that I had to wrap my legs around him not to fall. He moaned in an excited way when I started kissing him wild and drunk and he took a few steps to sit me down on the lid of an empty dumpster. He boisterously disrupted the kiss and began to let his tongue wander up and down my neck whilst his hands started touching my boobs. I moaned and pulled him closer with my legs and he crashed into the dumpster, but he laughed._

_„__Come on, baby, let's do it."_

_He gave me another wet kiss and started opening his pants – as he suddenly slumped down and a well-known person took his place. No, she stood behind his body, but my stereoscopic vision was limited thanks to all the alcohol, which was why I didn't realize at first how the second Antonio started shifting his shape, how his skin turned blue and his hair turned red, the body female with an injection in her hand. „Surprise."_

„Galathea?" Kurt had leaned down and stared into my eyes. „Is everything okay?"

„What? Oh, I'm sorry, I just had a little …" I tried to find the words for it. „… flashback."

„Was it bad?"

„It was one oft he better memories.", I waved it aside. Me drunk and only one death and the person hadn't even died through my hand. Yeah, obviously one oft he good nights. „Not as bad as all that."

„I too have that once in while." He gently touched my shoulder and didn't let go when I started shaking. „From my time at the circus." I nodded. „And you don't have to be scared. We'll do this slowly."

„Kurt, I don't want any relationship." It would bring responsibility and he would expect certain things from me that I wouldn't be able to fulfill and … that just wasn't me.

His encouraging smile vanished with my words and his look got harder as I had ever seen it before. „Yes, you do. Or else you wouldn't have just done that."

„Don't think you're able to tell me what I want!" I slashed at his hand but he took hold again and pulled me into a tight hug.

„Only if you don't want to admit what you actually think." He gave me kiss on the forehead and I didn't even resist this time. Then he let go of me and the right corner of his mouth cracked a smile which made me smirk. „In my room, at nine, if that's okay with you."

And then he was gone and grey and blue smoke was all around me.

That I asked Storm for a dress for a party downtown – embarrassing enough.

But that I also put it on, that really beat everything – and it was the last proof for that I had changed. Holy shit, I was wearing a _dress!_ Those were for girls, not for ex hatchet men! Although I had to admit that the green flimsy fabric with the white birds on it really did look great on me and emphasized my pale skin. I looked good and felt like a teenager again. I had something like a date.

Yeah, right!

I immidiately banished that thought. Kurt knew me. He knew the way I worked and probably more than me or Preofessor X had told him when it came to my past. And I mean, he had also changed in the last few weeks, I felt like he got more brave. And when he had kissed me on the sofa yesterday, it most probably hadn't been his first kiss. Assumedly he was just trying to score with his pseudo do-gooder affectation, and he wasn't the first to try.

But what should I do. I grapped my leather jacket and let my hand slide into ist left pocket where I had always kept my concoms for years. It was empty. Fuck. Who had been the last one? Oh right, Frederic, about three months ago. New record.

Suddelny I didn't feel that good anmore about my intention. I obviously had a thing for him and if he was only pretending, then …

I left my room without shoes because my boots seemed a bit out of place, doesn't matter if this was a date or only sex. The carpet in the corridor in which the older students had their rooms on the one side and the adult mutants on the other felt warm and soft under my bare feet. The hallway felt endless long, but maybe it was just because of my excitement that made me a bit dizzy.

The last door in the corridor was the one to Jean Grey and Cyclops' room, I knew that because I had seen them walk in and out a couple of times now. I also knew Storm's room from this afternoon when I got the dress, Gambit slept outside oft he institute, Wolverine in a student's room like me – so the last door left of Jean and Scott's must be Kurt's.

I fixed my hair which made me look bugged, turned the silver door knob and opened the door.

„Listen, if you only want to sleep with me then don't try making it feel like a fucking date because –" Kurt's room was about twice as big as mine and completely held in white, except fort he bed sheets, those were darker, but I couldn't identify the exact shade because all the lights in the room were turned off and only a few candles litt he room. „Holy shit."

„You reall shouldn't swear that much." Kurt sat in a little oriel at the window, surrounded by a few colorful pillows. He wore dark pants and a button-down shirt with a sports coat over it and suddenly I didn't feel anymore like my dress was way over the top. What he had done here was simply beautiful and very romantic, even though I wasn't really into that.

„I think you've never met a gentleman.", he said quietly with a sad undertone in his voice. „If I only wanted to sleep with you I would have most likely tried that in a more primitive way." That made me giggle and bashful, I closed the door behind me.

„Looks like you're right."

„You look very beautiful." He wanted to get up to come towards me but I gave him a sign not to so I could turn around and take a look at his room. Different to me he didn't have a bookshelf, but merely a few asymmetric shelves that – distributed over two walls – gave room to a few thin illustrated books and CDs anf that looked like expensive designer furniture, just like the white chest of drawers to their right and the high wardrobe on the opposite side oft he room.

The high point oft he room was the king size canopy bed in the middle of the room, filled with more pillows than I could count in a rush.

„Do you like it?"

„It's incredible." Compared to this palace right there my room was a prison cell. „Did you furnish this?" I took a few steps in his direction. Kurt nodded and seemed proud.

„I brought most oft he things from Europe whenever I came here."

„So you mostly live outside the institute?"

„I'm barely here, but the professor keeps me the room since he first found me. For me it's the first time I hang out around here for longer than a week." He took my hand and I sat down vis-à-vis to him in the oriel, by back against the wall.

„Don't think you can impress me with only your room." I tucked up my legs at which I didn't miss that he peeked at my underwear that flashed up for a split second. „You're not as well-behaved as I though, Kurt Wagner."

„And you're not as callous as you pretend to be, Galathea Stone." He imitated me by tucking up his legs. He didn't wear any shoes, just like me, so I was able to see his feet with the three toes. They gently touched mine which now seemed oddly feminine to me, compared to his, that looked more like they belonged to an animal than a more or less human being.

„What are you, actually?", I asked and I knew that it sounded impolite, but I thought that the question was justified if the person you're talking to looked like him.

He glanced at me, studied the fighting scars that I had all over my body and gave me a compassionate look. „Fifty-fifty demon and human mutant.", he answered. „Beautiful, right?" I noticed his sarcasm.

„I like the color of your skin." I admitted and streched my legs so that his feet lay right next to his hips. Without taking his eyes off me he began to softly fondle my ankles and I smiled. I had never felt so comfortable.


	9. Fate Fell Short This Time

_Hello, along comes chapter 9! I haven't uploaded anything in a long time, I hope you don't mind! And of course, feel free to post reviews! Xx Annika_

**Chapter 9: Fate fell short this time**

„Do you want to stay over night?" Kurt blurted out with the question as if he had already thought about my answer the whole evening. Before I could give him an answer he quickly added: „Not fort hat of course, just … like that, I mean …" He stuttered.

„I got it." No sex. „If you'd consider me such a slut, I would be really disappointed."

„No. You're not like that.", he said, but he seemed a bit unsure when I looked away.

„Not anymore." Oh damn, why did I just say that? „We'll talk about that another time." I added and he smirked.

„Okay. So you're … staying?"

„I – I have my pyjamas in my room, so …"

„I can lend you something of you want to." I teleported tot he wardrobe and I turned around. Then he came back to stand next to me. „Here." In his hand he held a dark gray t-shirt and a pair of neatly folded boxers. I didn't take his things at first so he let his arm sink down. „I'm not forcing you."

„No, it's fine." I said. „It's just a bit …"

„… unfamiliar?" I nodded. He put the clothes on the pillow next to. „I want look."

I grinned as he turned around, then I opened the zipper of my dress, took of my clothes and put on his, which were far too wide, but definitely more warm and comfortable than the dress.

I turned around. Kurt still stood behind me, but he had also taken off his clothes and was wearing his underwear. I stared at him.

„I'm sorry, I'm not really working out anymore, if that's what you expected." His dragon-like tail anxiously seesawed back and forth and I started laughing.

„You must be joking." I tried not to stare at his muscles that clearly loomed on hi schest and stomach to form an impressive six-pack. And the last time I had seen such pelvic muscles must have been on Antonia three years ago, aside from magazines.

„What time is it?"

Kurt took a step back and checked the time on the clock hanging over his bed, I hadn't noticed it, as well as that we had talked for almost two hours; it was eleven o'clock. He teleported into his bed and slid tot he edge of his bed. „Come."

Wow, I was really excited. I stepped closer tot he bed and followed him, keeping my distance.

„I won't touch you, if you don't want me to!"

„What?" I made a suprised sound, but then it became had misinterpreted my aloofness as such that I didn't want any physical proximity even though it was the emotional one that was all new for me. I came closer and put my hand on his chest. It felt hard and very muscular and I liked it. „That's not what I meant."

„So I'm allowed to touch you?" He sounded like a child.

„Kurt?"

„Yeah?"

„How old are you?"

„25."  
I grinned and snuggled up to him. Now that was a fun start to it …

The next morning I woke up in my own bed with not a bit of Kurt anywhere.

I stared at the lampshade above me and tried to remember how I ended up here. I had gotten up in the middle oft he night and hey, maybe I had just got scared, but I had broken free from Kurt's gentle hug and come back to my own room.

Extremely impolite, if you thought about it.

But he didn't knock on my door nor did he ask me about it. Technically speaking he didn't even see me until I spoke to him a dew days later when I found him in the garden, praying.

„Kurt, I'm sorry."

„It's alright."

_„__GALATHEA!" Why did she always have to yell? I jumped off the swing and my long blonde hair and the pink dress fluttered in the wind. I grapped my shoes and more or less stumpled into the house._

_„__Oui, maman?"_

_„__Don't be silly, you can speak English when we're at home. Plus, our guest is from the States." Guest? I noticed the stranger in the doorway. He wore wide pants that were held in place with a belt and whose legs ended in scuffed boots dirty from the soil outside our house. I couldn't see his face because he was hiding it under the dark hood of his jacket, but I was distracted by his violet gloves. He seemed mysterious, just like strangers were always portrayed in fantasy books._

_„__Say hello to our guest. He came a long way.", my mom scolded._

_„__Hello.", I said and offered him my hand. He shook it and suddenly he held a stuffed animal in his other hand, a flufy bear witha violet bow around its neck._

_„__I got this for you, ma petite princesse.", he said with a dark, rough voice and I was surprised that he spoke French fluently, but English with an accent. I hapily grapped the teddybear and squeezed it._

_„__Thank you, sir." The stranger said his same but I didn't really understand it. Something sounding like „Bo". And that's how my teddybear got its name, Mr. Bo._

I really couldn't figure out where that memory came from.

Kurt let his rosary slip back into his pocket and got up. „If you want you can come again tonight." He looked down at me and his yellow eyes sparkled. „I'd like it."

„Me – too.", I said stagnant and tried not to look him in the eyes. I lookd around a bit twitchy, but we were alone.

„Awesome." I felt that it got warmer when he came closer and I flinched. He disappeared and I heard him wisper: „Well then, this way." from behind me. I winced and turned around. He put an arm around me and kissed my nose. „See you then."

_See you then_, that's what he had said. Damn, that now meant I had to go. Not that it was too bad or anything, when he had kissed me goodbye my whole body had prickled like sherbet, even though it hadn't even been on the mouth and I was aware that I liked him more than just, well, _like_ by now.. What I didn't like was the fact that a second date was going in the obvious direction of a relationship and that would be suicide in a place where everyone hated me.

Yet, I had always been egoistic.

I banged my head on my tabletop, but it hurt more than I had intended it to so I immidiately sat up straight again and rubbed my forehead. Luckily nobody had seen _that_. However, Kurt had to accept my opinion.

Bored, I puffed against a lose leaf and jigged with my feet. Something hit my right ankle. I only now remembered the knife I had hid there just in case. I took it out and while I kicked my shoes into the corner I threw the knife on my desk, where it slipped out of its thin envelope and stopped.

Staring out oft he window I abstractedly grabbed the knife at the blade, but when I opened my fingers to drop it a glistening bright light broke the dim light in my room and an acute pain in my forearm forced me to look at it.

My arm was literally burning and the fire slowly made my skin melt off my flesh and started licking my clothes. I yelled and started hitting the flames with my other hand and blew, quickly moving away from all the books and lose leaves on my desk. Swinging my arm around wildly and still crying out in shock and pain I grabbed the the sheets from my bed and threw it over me.

It extuinguished the fire.

My heart was beating twice as fast as usual as I carefully touched the coal on my arm. It just fell off and all that it left was flawless, smooth, pale skin. How in the world was that possible? Hadn't I just seen bloody flesh? My arm felt cool, only my burnt sleeve gave proof oft he fire.

I wiped away the rest oft he coal with the back of my hand which was when I noticed a little swelling on my radius, about seven centimeters from my wrist.

Two strange little orthogonal scars formed an about two centimeter big cross – an X.


	10. Solutions

_It's been a long time since I posted the last chapter and I'm sorry! I hope you like this one even more, also feel free to review! :) Annika xx_

**Chapter 10: Solutions**

I heard the door closing behind me, but I was already standing in fornt oft he professor's desk and held the knife under his very nose, wrapped in the sleeve of my shirt which I had ripped off. „What the fuck is that?"

The surprised look on Xavier's face didn't change a bit. „Where did you get that?"

„That shit _burned_ me.", was what I managed to say, showing the old man my tattered shirt and my arm. „That damn X, it must stand for you!"

„You stole it."

„I was bored."

„Don't think I didn't know you had it." He sighed and rolled around his desk. He carefully felt my arm, which surprisingly barely hurt. „This is exceedingly interesting."

„Why?"

„The briefcase with the knives. Did you bring it?"

I nodded and took the set of knives out of my jacket. I gave it to the professor who opened it.

„There were nine knives in here.", he said calm and looked directly into my eyes. I shivered. „Eight normal ones and one that shows the truth. They were all forged in Germany in the late 1900s, around the Fall of the Wall, by a group of mighty mutants from different countried. They all had one thing in common, they were very strong physically, but their mind was easy to play tricks on by telepaths."

„I don't understand why you're telling me that story.", I said, pulled back my arm and put my hands in my pockets.

„Wait for it." Xavier smiled. „They had a hostage, a female mutant with telepathic powers who they were trying to get information out of. But she always kept on controlling their way of thought, eight oft he nine mutants went insane, only the last one had a plan: He made a smith from a parallel world forge the weapons of which one had the power to show the true intentions of telepaths when they touch it." Xavier took the knife and showed me the handle where the little intentation were. It was one more than before and for a second I thought to see my own initials, G.S..

„Every time it does ist work, the mutant it works on is left with a small scar. You seem to be the fourth one."

„That's nice." I tried to look chilled and not impressed, but my voice bus shaking. „But I'm not a fucking telepath."

„I know, I know …" The professor seemed in deep thought. „But telepathy is deceit in a way, just like your power is, or Mystique's shape shifting. That it why it worked, I think."

„So I'm gonna have to live with this scar fort he rest of my life." Like I cared.

The professor smirked. „We both know you like it. Andy es, you will have to, but at least none oft he people here will ever suspect you of still working for Magneto."

„And I'll be served on the silver platter to his allies.", I hissed. „Why doesn't it tattoo me something on the forehead?"

„You really have to try to moderate your hot temper, Galathea."

„Shadow."

„Galathea, that's your name."

„My temper is non of your business."

„Well." The professor looked at the knife again as if he hadn't heard my comment. „I find this weapon fascinating. That is why I own it, to study the way it works."

„There you go, take it back." I made a cantilevered gesture.

„Thank you for bringing it back to me." He smiled his grandfather-like smile. „By the way, you're pretty amazing at throwing knives."

„Well, thanks." I fixed the position of the chair I was standing next to and took a step back into the direction oft he office's door.

„You're already leaving?" YOu really didn't have tob e a telepath to figure out that it didn't surprise him at all. „We'll get another chance to talk sooner or later."

I murmured a quiet thank you when I closed the door. Then I just stopped, my back leaning against the wooden door. The professor had touched the knife. He, a teleptha. Did that mean I had a little scar somewhere, like me? Or was he immune due to all his studies? And the X stood for Xavier, so how could he have an X scar somewhere? What if _he_ was the telepath in his story? No, he had said _female_ mutant.

Dammit, why was I even thinking about that?

I glanced at my forearm that made a piteous impression in combination with the scar and the burnt and ripped shirt. I touched the little X. I actually liked it, it had something bold and cool, but I wasn't happy about the meaning of it. I could only hope that not many people knew about it.

I didn't dress up for my second date with Kurt, no dress, no jewelry. I just put on my second pair of jeans, green with many pockets on the legs and a dark sweater. They weren't technically my clothes, but I had found them in the wardrobe of my room. The former resident of the room must have been a girl, however her things were more girly, but not pink and no dresses or skirts.

Anyways, Kurt's room didn't impress me anymore like last time, even though he had again litt he room with only candles. But this time there was a low table standing in the middle of the room, with two bowls of soup on it. Soup? And where was Kurt?

I saw him when I turned around. He was hanging from his wardrobe, only by his toes. The tension of his body was probably something he had learned at the circus. I grinned a bit when he teleported and appeared right in front of me wih messy hair. Different from the first time he hugged me tight to welcome we and I showed him my fondness by wrapping my arms around him as well.

„I wanted to cook something, but all I'm able to do is soup." He grinned as an apologize when he let me go and saw my slightly confused look at the table. „So that's a fail I guess."

„Not at all.", I smiled and playfully hit him in the stomach. „We'll just have soup, it's fine. It's better than anything I could do." His skin color got a bit darker, which was probably the equivalent of blushing for blue-skinned people. He reached for my hand and guided me tot he table. It was beautifully decorated with Asian signs.

„I lived in Japan for a while." He explained. „Or I rather hid from mutant hunters in Europe. Some lunatic called Stryker."

„He actually caught me and Storm a few years ago!", I said surprised. „You were lucky!"

„He caught you? How?"

„He had set up traps. He studied me and knew every single one of my steps.", I remembered. „Even though he hates mutants, he hired telepaths to see through my powers for him. Killed them all afterwards."

„Wow." Kurt sat down on the floor cross-legged and I did the same. I looked down into the bowl and was suprised that the soup actualy smelled and looked good, even though I had never seen it before.

„Potato soup.", he said. „It was my favorite food as a child." He took his spoon and I tried it. It didn't taste too bad, thinking of this as a kind of date and that it was already nine o'clock. I never really had a date, but I was sure that usually people didn't eat soup at Japanese tables. I had to laugh about my own thoughts.

„What happened?" Kurt looked at me, but instead of an answer I put my spoon aside and slowly touched his hand. He followed me with his eyes, but when I carefully started fondling it he closed his eyes and grabbed my hand. I shivered.

Then everything went black and I fell on the floor, the floor of Kurt's little oriel.

„We'll have to practice that." I picked myself up and tried to sit like a normal person, but Kurt came closer, his yellow eyes focused on my face, my lips. My whole body started prickling again when he kissed me and I couldn't keep myself from moving closer to him and putting my hands around his neck.

I loved how unperfect and still beautiful everything was with him.

Wait, did I just say the l-word?

There was no time left to think about that because he gently interrupted the kiss and looked me in the eyes, his face so close to mine that I could feel every breathe he took. I noticed that his eyes weren't just yellow, but that they had different shades, with something like a darker iris in the middle. I lost myself in his honest, soft look and lost in thought placed my hand on his cheek.

Then he lay over me and gently pressed me down into the pillows as he kissed me. His lips were soft and warm and the slight movements feld natural, as if they were made for interacting with mine.

„Please don't tell this to anyone.", I wispered while I slowly slipped my hands under his shirt. „Everyone here hates me already."

„Not everyone.", Kurt replied, wispering like me, and gave me a kiss onthe forehead. Then he took off his short with a fluent move. I grinned like little girl but then I skillfully retraced the muscles on hi schest.

And in this night I stayed in his room without running away in the middle of the night.


	11. A Story Of How Lust Causes New Problems

_Gal and Kurt's relationship is getting deeper! Have fun! Annika xx_

**Chapter 11: The short story of how lust causes new problems**

The next morning it was him missing even though I had fallen asleep in his arms last night. I didn't know why, but I was pretty sure he would come back. He wasn't like _that_, he was too well-behaved to run away from a girl in his bed – I guessed. I made sure that he wasn't still in the room, then I sat up and shook out my hair. I probably looked like I had just been through a hot club night with a lot of drugs, although it has only been eating, talking and a few kisses.

The air began to flicker and not a second later Kurt stood at the end oft he bed. He wasn't wearing any more than dark blue boxers and a light t-shirt, which I supposed was his pyjamas.

„That's the kind of visit I need in the morning." I tucked up my legs, grinning, and pulled down my shirt to slinky hide my briefs, the only thing I had put on for sleeping apart from my bra and t-shirt.

„For real." He ended in smoke and appeared right next to me where he slowly began to caress my thighs until I stretched my legs.

„What's up with you?", I askes surprised as Kurt took off his shirt and slowly approached. „You're so … passionate." Not as calm as usual. Were all these godly people even allowed to do this?

„It's because of you.", he gnarled in a sexy voice, smooth like velvet and like music in my ears. His fingers moved along my cheek which I replied by affectionately going through his dark hair with my hand. He bowed his head and opened his mouth a bit so that I was able to feel his breathe on my skin, but he didn't kiss me. Instead he just stayed there, lieing on top of me, with his naked chest pressed to mine and with his lips so close to me that it was almost hurting not to touch them. I applied a bit more pressure to the back of his head and pulled him closer, directly into a kiss and I alternately was hot and cold. His sharp teeth tickled my tongue. Unable to control myself, I bit him in his lower lip and he jumped back.

„Did I go too far?"

„No, just go on, go on!" I moaned when Kurt definitely interjected the kiss and went down my neck with his tongue, slipping his hands under my shirt at the same time. The fingers of the hand that I still held close to his head clenched into his hair with relish while I let the other one wander down his back and angled my legs to cross them right over his tailbone.

His hands and lips felt like they were everywhere when he simultaneously doffed my t-shirt and bra, only to hug me tight right after.

I felt how the bump in his pants that he seemed to be a bit embarrassed of got bigger and I pressed my pelvis to it. A third thing wound around me and I looked up. Kurt's dragon-like tail had wrapped itself around me.

I turned my head an searched for his lips, kissing every free spot of his body I found. I placed mine on his and gently bitt he lower one again, but this one he didn't jumb back but clasped my hips with his hands, letting them slide down pulling down my underwear. My body felt like pins and needles and my brain was turned off as I made Kurt take off his last piece of clothing as well.

„Are you sure about this?", he wispered caring between two groanings as I gently rubbed his genital area. I nodded and didn't really wonder about him asking me as if this was my first time because he let his pelvis down and put to his first push. Like in thousands of little restless buzzing bees and butterflies my stomach exploded and I had to bury my face in his neck not to scream out loud. He smelled so good, so good.

„Nightcrawler!" Kurt abruptly stopped moving when he heard the yell from outside his door that it made me moan again.

„Yes?", he yelled back, but his voice sounded forced because he convulsively tried to cover up what he were doing in here at the moment. At the same time he rolled down from me, gently touching my naked stomach. I turned my head into the pillows and kissed his shoulder. As an answer, he petted my hair.

What idiot was standing outside?

„Professor X needs you." I heard the door slowly opening but Kurt and I were to shocked and surprised to react so we just sat there, watching, listening tot he interrupting person that just went on talking – and then stopped his little speech and exclaimed: „Kurt! You know it's forbidden to bring outsiders into the institute or even start relationships with students – holy shit!"

I had turned my head in Storm's direction.

If I hadn't been naked and only sparsely covered by a blanket and Kurt's right arm, the look on her face probably would have been the most hilarious thing in the world. Her mouth and eyes were widely opened in amazement, her hands thrown up. I couldn't tell if she was just puzzled, confused or angry. But for sure she was unable to speak.

I moved closer to Kurt and at the same time covered my boobs with the blanket. Kurt didn't react, he just stared at Storm. If he'd have been a book, his face would have read out „uncertainty" now.

„I'll be there in a second, Storm." I heard his voice shaking. „Hang on."

In the silence that followed after Storm had left the room backwards and still astonished you would have been able to hear a needle fall.

„That was … awkward." See, I made it. Broke the silence.

Kurt only nodded, mving away from me and getting out oft he bed, covering himself as if I had never seen a man naked. I blushed, though, and looked away, because whenever I looked at him it felt like something inside me fell off and made me feel a hundred times lighter, whenever I smelled his scent my pulse went up and my hands started to shake. I had never felt this way before.

„I have to go." Kurt was standing at the door, his hand placed on the door knob, and he looked at me, apologizing with his eyes. I nodded and half a second later I kneeled over me and hugged me. „Another time, alright?" I nodded again and he kissed my forehead. „You're so beautiful. And I'm really sorry." I smiled and so did he. „I'll just go and try to keep Storm from telling all the others about this."

„Let her.", I said. „They'll find out about us anyways." I didn't care if everyone knew that of all things it was god-fearing Nightcrawler who went out with Magneto's alleged spy. I didn't care if they knew who I fancied.

But it shouldn't be that way.


	12. Past is over

_What will Kurt and Gal do after Storm caught them? Have fun finding out ;) xx Annika_

**Chapter 12: Past is over.**

At this point I can't really tell anymore what's luck and what's bad luck.

A few months ago I probably would have never seen Kurt again that day nor anyone else, at least no living ones because I would have been sent to do another job again without batting an eyelash.

But today, living in a house full of mutants, it wasn't too unrealistic to cross paths with Kurt a few times, Storm as well. I didn't know who Storm had told the story of what she had seen this morning to, but I had a feeling that everyone was staring at mea s if they knew about it which made we walk faster automatically, even though I didn't find it embarrassing at all.

Kurt on the other hand shunned me. Once I even caught him teleporting when I entered the library. Storm who had stood next to him raised an eyebrow and eyeballed me like she had done before.

I didn't understand the people here. They did so many things that I would have found more embarrassing (and wearing those super tight suits was only the tip of the iceberg), but when they found out who fucked whom they acted like little kids and hushed up.

As loath I am wanting to defend Kurt (well, actually not …), I undertood his point of view. If I had to peg all the mutants in the institute as a certain type depending on their personality traits, after Logan, the wild, Storm, the mighty effervescing, there would be him – the well-behaved godly guy. I doubted that there was another difference for them between ‚Nightcrawler has sex' and ‚Nightcrawler hass ex with Shadow', for hi mit was just embarrassing to live with those people in one building.

But the rest … Everybody here knew anyways that Jean and Scott were together, an das if they didn't do it or had ever been caught. I really didn't believe that they only touched each other in their room with a sign on the door!

Plus, I was almost sure that this innocent student that was always wearing gloves, had this one light gray strand of hair and was hanging out with Logan a lot, Rogue was her name, was going out with this other student, a relatively grown-up looking kid named Bobby.

And don't even get me started on Logan and Gambit. I only knew them for a few weeks but they both reminded me of myself, making them rebellious libertines that took whatever they needed.

Okay, I admit it, maybe it was because of my past. But it wasn't my fault that my first time and a few times after had been so … well, public.

I provokingly touched my dekollete when Storm walked past me slowly when she quitt he library and she tried hard not to react. I made a gum bubble into her direction and leaned back in my armchair, crossing my legs on the little table.

I saw the blue smoke, heard the ‚BAMF!' and murmered an unimpressed „Hello" before Kurt put his hand on the back of the armchair, fainthearted. He didn't reply, but – as far as I could tell, after all I had my back turned in his direction – only followed my unseeing eyes.

„What happened earlier …" He stood behind me, but now his hand shyly petted my shoulder. „… I'm really sorry about it."

„Don't be." I turned around to look him in the eyes. „Except you planned it, because I' do things with you that –"

„Storm? That's not what I mean." He cracked a crooked smile. „It … wasn't quite me."

„I'm a bad influence." With a rapid look I checked if the library was really empty, then I leaned in his direction, but he interrupted my try to kiss him.

„No, I'm serious. Maybe you liked it this time, but don't always expect it to be like this, I don't know what happened this morning."

I pulled up my eyebrows, amused. „Believe me, I know …"

„No … I mean, yes – no." He tilted his head and gulped. „I mean, I'm actually more into … romance." He almost wispered the last part and I shuddered a bit.

„That's alright." I put my hand on his cheek and he gripped my hand.

„I feel like an idiot.", he said and looked really ashamed standing in front of me like that, still trying to avoid looking at me.

„No.", I said and added: „Sex is normal and so are relationships." Meaning, sex is awesome and relationships are … well, let's just say, I'm not used to them.

„Relationhips?" He started to smile and showed his sharp teeth for a short moment. „So at least it was worth it."

„It wasn't your first time anyways.", I laughed and kissed him on his nose.

„The third …" He blushed and I was sure that he tried to guess how often I had done it, but when the number got to high he decided not to mention it. Better that way. „Other than that I've only –"

„Masturbated?"

„Watched movies. And by that I mean romantic Hollywood movies." Oh damn, this was getting awkward. „So you don't have a problem with Storm probably telling all the others?"

„No." It's worse for you anyways, I silently added.

„Well then." He placed a strand of my hair behind my ear.

_The skin oft he girl that was staring at me out oft he mirror was white as chalk. I looked like the wall behind me without ven using my power. Since that stupid ship had left this European harbor I felt sick. At least I was here now. My hair unglamorously hung down until my waist, shaggy and stringy. The way it framed my face made me look childish, apart from the terrible rings under my eyes._

_This girl had murdered two men in the past two weeks. And she had liked it._

_My mother would have been proud of me, maybe she had even noticed from where she was now._

_Dead and burnt down to ashes., my head quipped. The bible is the biggest storybook in the world._

_I pulled my knife out of my belt and took one of my bang strands into my hand. It fell no five seconds later._

_Never to be seen again, past. Magneto was my future!_

_I put tot he next strand, this time closer to my head, right above the ear. I cut off my hair shorter and shorter, until it wasn't any longer than two centimeters._


End file.
